Marketplace Tech

This year turned out to be a pretty big year for autonomous vehicles. Waymo is the leader in the robotaxi race and over the last year, its signature Jaguar electric vehicles have become a common sight on the streets and recently freeways of cities around the country.Companies like Uber and Zooks have expanded their fleets to several metropolitan areas. And Tesla finally rolled out its cybercab service in a limited capacity in Austin.Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke to Kirsten Korosec, transportation editor at TechCrunch, about how the robotaxi became a common fixture on city streets this year.

About half of U.S. states now require some form of online age verification to prevent kids from accessing certain content — usually pornography. But in some cases, that also means broader categories of adult content that include social media. Drew Harwell, tech reporter at The Washington Post, has been following this.

Will Gottsegen, a staff writer at The Atlantic, tests out Meta’s AI smart glasses and gives us a recap of how AI continues to get embedded in consumer tech.

Polystyrene is the chemical compound that makes up styrofoam, which is used for packaging and insulation. But it’s not the most environmentally friendly.By one estimate, 40 million tons of polystyrene were produced globally in 2024, leaving millions of tons of plastic waste. The search for an earth-friendly alternative has led researchers to dig deep and come up with an unlikely solution: fungus. The BBC’s Anna Holligan has this story.

In January, we saw a who's who of tech leaders front and center at President Donald Trump's inauguration.Since, the White House has advocated for the build out of AI infrastructure and put a moratorium on state-level AI regulation. But the Trump administration also added a $100,000 fee to petitions for H-1B visas, which are widely used in the tech sector. To review the year in tech and Trump we called up Suyash Pasi, a research analyst and editor at the nonprofit Human Rights Research Center, who’s been following this shift.